This Valentines Day, I decided to try something a little different. At first I was going to make a heart shaped geode cake but, I wanted to make something that was quick and easy to make. That’s when I came up with the idea to make Valentine’s Day sugar cookie cakes.
I envisioned making mini cakes that looked like sugar cookies topped with royal icing. So if you enjoy making cakes that look like food, I’m sure you will love this tutorial. The process to make these Valentine’s Day sugar cookie cakes is super easy and quick to make.
Supplies needed:
- 1 layer of cake
- Heart shaped cookie cutter
- Buttercream (or any type of frosting)
- Small icing spatula
- Fondant
- Cake board
- Rolling pin
- Piping bags
- Turntable
- Royal icing
- Gel paste food coloring
Step 1: Carving the cake
To get started you will cut the dome off of the cake to flatten it out. Next you will cut that one layer of cake into two layers of cake.
After cutting the cake into two layers, you will use the heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out heart shaped pieces of cake. This will create a realistic look for these Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookie Cakes.
For this tutorial I used one 8 inch cake in diameter.
Altogether, I was able to cut out 4 heart shaped pieces of cake from each layer which came to a total of 8 pieces.
Step 2: Covering the Cakes in Fondant
After cutting out the heart shaped pieces of cake, you will now crumb coat each piece with buttercream (or any type of frosting) and place it into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
To make the fondant the same color as a sugar cookie, I used ivory and yellow gel paste good coloring. I started using small amounts of ivory food coloring and then ended off using a small amount of yellow food coloring to make a sugar cookie color.
Please be care to add small amounts at a time because sugar cookies have a light colored tint so if you add a large amount of gel paste you may have to potentially start all over. After coloring the fondant, you can now roll it out to cover each piece of cake.
1 batch of fondant from my fondant recipe will be able to cover up to 6 heart shaped pieces of cake. Now that you have covered each piece of cake in fondant, you can now move on to decorating each sugar cookie cake.
Step 3: Decorating the Cake
As with most sugar cookies they are decorated with Royal Icing. Royal Icing is very simple to use and easy to make. The most amazing factor about Royal Icing is that once it dries, it’s very difficult to ruin the design. Now I’m not a pro at decorating cookies using Royal Icing, but just using it a couple of times has made me a believer in what it can do.
In this step, I made a delicious batch of Royal Icing and separated it into four bowls to make pink, red, and black while leaving the remaining color white. If you would like to try my simple and easy Royal icing recipe, I will be sharing that in the next post for this week. That recipe is foolproof and very easy to use. Plus it tastes great.
After separating the Royal Icing into fours bowls to make four different colors, I placed each color into a piping bag with a #2 piping tip for the rim of the cookie cake and #3 piping tip to flood the cookie cake.
Please keep in mind that you will need to alter the consistency of your royal icing based upon your design. You can simply do this by adding 1 teaspoon of water at a time until you’ve reach your desired consistency.
You will need to have a thicker consistency for the outer rim of the cookie cake because it will prevent the Royal Icing from spilling off of the cookie cake and thin consistency to flood the center or a particular area of the cookie, based upon your design.
Hooray! You Just Made a Sugar Cookie Cake!
I hope you have found this post very helpful and fun to read! This project was really fun and perfect to make with your children. This would be the perfect dessert for that very special loved one on Valentines Day.
Always remember to have fun and be creative because at the end of the day, it’s your very own creation. Please comment below to share any ideas or your tips for using royal icing and experience from making these cute Valentine’s day sugar cookie cakes.
Important Tips
- Use Frozen Cake: With frozen cake, you will achieve a sharp cut using the cookie cutter and it will be easier to crumb coat the cake. Keep in mind to work quickly because as the cake thaws out it will become too soft to crumb coat. The cake will crumble while it’s being crumb coated causing the cake to loose its shape.
- Use small amounts of gel food coloring: I highly recommend using small amounts of gel paste for the Fondant and Royal Icing because if you are trying to achieve a specific color, you don’t want to risk making the wrong color and in return have to toss out a good batch of Fondant or Royal Icing.
- Use a smaller piping tip for boarder of cake: I actually realized at the last minute that I was supposed to #2 piping tip for the rim of the cookie. This will help the royal icing to look flush with the rim once the cookie has been flooded.
